The specification relates to generating an overlay for sharing information on a website among users who are associated with a social network.
People frequently obtain the information that they need from the Internet. When people have a question, they seek an answer from a forum discussing a related subject, friends in their social networks, web searches, etc. However, each of these answer seeking procedures has disadvantages.
A forum is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations and provide information on a specific subject that they are interested in. A person asks a question in the forum and waits for others viewing the topic to respond to the question. However, there are at least two problems for a person obtaining information in this way. First, there is no control on whether and when others respond to the question. Second, it is hard to judge whether the responses from others are reliable.
As people become more and more socialized on the Internet, people tend to obtain information from contacts in their social networks. People and their contacts are connected because of friendship, family or other relationships. If the contacts know the answer to a question, their answers might be reliable. However, the contacts may not have pertinent information to answer the question.
People can also obtain information through a web search. However, if people need more information beyond the search result (e.g., the website), people have to leave the website to traverse the Internet for additional information.